This is about what Tolstoi meant when he declared it was for the people. Tolstoi spoke at a good time. It will not be long before all things will be for the people. The future belongs to them. There will no more be walled gardens.
The idea for Rostand’s Chanticleer was inspired largely by The Birds of Aristophanes. Rostand was a borrower. Likewise from the same comedy, Leopardi, incomparable Greek scholar, took the idea for his essay on birds, in which he tries to fancy theirs the ideal life.
The Greeks knew how to set words so they glow. Every time I re-read him I am surer there is nothing new. In The Frogs, in the journey of disguised Bacchus across Land of the Dead, we find initial idea of Dante’s Inferno; to be exact the Pilgrimage Through Purgatory. It is the same only under guise of another religion. There are a few books in which most printed art has its roots. Solomon was right. There is nothing new. There are only a few Homeric laughers.
The exotic grace, the honeyed charm of Swinburne, came from Greek and French poets. No wonder the perfection of Swinburne made would-be poets take to new verse. It was hopeless to contend with him. When you reach the top of the hill there is nothing to do but go down. Swinburne reached the top of the mountain.
The long winged dapple swallows, (Aristophanes), is a Swinburnian phrase. From the choruses of Euripides, he learned music, swift-swinging resonant movement. That breathless on-rushing, which no poet of today has, came from here. They are astonishingly alike in sound-quality. A poet is like what he admires. Love is a magnet in the world of mind.
Maeterlinck, in his book about bees, borrowed from Fabre. In philosophical articles he has shown indebtedness to India. I recall a series of these articles in which he uses the words, the unknown guest, literally translated from Sanskrit. He has been praised for the phrase. It is a fine phrase. But it does not belong to Maeterlinck.
Alfred Noyes, in Drake, leaned lightly upon a narrative poem by Spencer, describing South America.
An Arabic poet, on his way to exile in Africa, sang sadly:
It’s a long white road to Mekinez!
That was before the days of Tipperary.